My dear readers, Nina and I returned safely to A2, just in time for the opening game of football season (Nina got season tickets this year, I opted to invest my share into wine…duh). We had a marvelous trip to South East Asia, and finished it off with 28 hours in my beloved Seoul, where I lived for 5 months many years ago. It was a bag of mixed feelings, being back in that city after so many years, meeting old colleagues and eating true Korean food. Just a wonderful finish for this trip. As I mentioned before, we visited GranMonte Winery in Thailand, and I plan on writing about this estate in the near future.
Today, I want to pause a moment and do a retrospect on my summer guest blogging series. First of all, fellow writers, thank you so much for your contributions! I was blown away by your posts and the generosity with which you supplied them. It was totally heartwarming to site so many thousands of miles away in Thailand, Laos or Cambodia and see the posts come up…thank you.
Second, the series was a great success. It kept the visitor numbers pretty much stable throughout the summer, which is what I had hoped for and was glad to see. Some of the posts broke or came close to old records of mine: One post made the most likes I ever received on a post (Megan, your readers are very like-prone! :), another almost made my daily views record, yet another made it a first with a self-composed song…most importantly, the series kept the conversation going, as was visible through all the commenting on the posts.
Third, I thought the content was really great: The diversity of approaches to my theme “Somewhere, Beyond the Sea” showed what inspirational writers all of you are. I found the content to be enriching, educational and fun. To me, this is what wine writing and blogging in general is about. The most important key aspect for me, though, was to see how the personal sides of all writers shone through. It is the personality aspect, and bringing people together, which I liked most about this endeavor.
In case you missed any of the posts, here they are again, in chronological order. That should make for a long, long Sunday Read. It is good to be back home, and I am looking forward to taking up posting again. Thank you all, writers and readers, for your continued interest in my blog. It is a great place to be in.
The Wine Raconteur: Chateau Latour 1961
Linda Foxworth: Beyond the Sea, Confined by Beauty
The Armchair Sommelier: Drinking Carmenère with the Devil
Talk-a-vino: Liquid Pleasures Beyond Wine – Rum
Tracy Lee Karner: 2011 Forster Kirchenstück Riesling inspires Happiness
Stefano Crosio: Cloudy Bay, Sauvignon Blanc Marlborough 2012
Erica Vitkin: Is Ignorance Bliss?
Kawavino: Trebinje – The Wine Capital of Republika Srpska
Cowboys and Crossbones: If this Wine Glass could talk
Talk-a-vino: Surrounded by the Ocean – Truro Vineyards
The Wine Raconteur: Torbreck “The Factor” 2001
Oenophilogical: Dry Creek Fumé Blanc 2011
Whine and Cheers: A Cuban and a Bottle of Carménère on Prince Edward Island
The Food and Wine Hedonist: While The Winegetter is Beyond the Sea…
the winegetter 
Oliver and Nina, welcome back and I look forward to your writings again, once you get your home cleaned up from the party that your last guest writer threw while you were gone. We are all waiting to hear more about your trip, when you get a chance. I may go out on a limb for the other guest writers, but I will say that it was fun to do it.
– John
Thanks John! It is good to be back. And my head is brimming with writing ideas and my palate thirsty for good wine…not sure how much I will be sharing about the trip here, because it is a bit off topic and I find that most of my stories are much better told than written. But we hope to see you soon, so that we can give you our full-fledged story assault…:)
Oliver, sounds great. Talk to you soon and enjoy the holiday.
– John
welcome back to a2 – go blue! happy i found your blog near the end of summer, now i have to catch up ) beth
Go Blue! :) You in A2 as well?
Thanks, Beth!!
absolutely ) and yw –
Sweet! Hope we’ll see each other one of these days…
i’m quite sure we’ll cross paths along the way –
The series was fun–but I missed hearing from you. It’s good to have you back, and posting.
Elaboration please, on the football tickets/wine deal. How does that work? Nina bought a ticket and you bought wine? Or Nina bought 2 tickets and you bought ample wine and you’re both sharing with each other?
Thanks, Tracy. I missed writing as well. It was cool to see how big a part of my life it has become, and that it sucked not being able to write more over the summer…but now that time is over.
Regarding to wine and football thing: It is pretty simple: Nina can get student tickets for games in the Big House (North America’s largest arena with 115,00 seats), while I would have had to pay full price. It would also have entailed sitting in different sections. Both I was not willing to accept. The price tag for seven games is severe, when not a student ticket, so I just opted to not get them…and reserved the right to spend the amount for a student ticket on future wine sales…naturally, I will pull that card way more often than I should…
That’s too bad (and although I understand they must have policies and limitations, I think it’s dumb). You like wine better than football anyway, right?
Oh, you bet…even when football is used in the European sense…:)
Welcome back, Man! :-)
Thanks, Dude! :)
Oliver, I’m glad you are back safe and sound. I think your idea of this series was wonderful, and I also think this series came out perfect. Thanks for posting the summary, as it appears that I missed one of the posts. Cheers!
Thank you, Anatoli! It is actually good to be back home, where I can cook my own food again and don’t have to rely on others for that…and I am glad you enjoyed the series.